Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you for all your cards and good wishes over Christmas and New Year.

We are settling into the new house and it feels like we’ve been there forever – except for the fact that we still have a lot of work to do in getting the rooms set up just how we want them!

January has flown by. We have both been busy at work and both grateful to be still in our jobs both working in financial services!!

Amelia is growing and her language is coming on in leaps and bounds. She enjoys singing and reading a lot.

We had until recently been suffering with over 40 degree temperatures and while that was nice on the weekends to spend the hot days by our pool and teaching Amelia to swim, during the week it was a bit challenging! The thermometer in the car was usually at 35 degrees on our way into work! I captured this photo on a particularly hot day.


Wow - there's not many people felt temperatures like that!

I'm sure you've all been hearing about the awful fires in Victoria - for those not living in Australia - it's been an absolute tragedy. Almost 200 people are dead and many more injured.

I know that some reports in the UK have described the area where the fires have been blazing as Southern Australia - while that's correct, they have been in the state of Victoria so a long way from us and we haven't been affected.

Having said that, we live in an area of South Australia that has experienced terrible bush fires before so we are attending a bushfire prevention workshop next week.

Iain is going to Melbourne for a boys weekend next weekend and I am looking forward to my Melbourne girls weekend in early March.

However on this trip there will be no drinking as I am 14 weeks pregnant with baby #2! I'm due mid August and now that the nausea and tiredness is beginning to cease I'm pleased about it all :-)

In January we took Amelia to the Shutzenfest, a German festival that is held in the City every year. Iain was able to enjoy the lovely, but expensive German beers and Amelia the free kids play section with bouncy castle and an ice cream.




Amelia also experienced her first haircut at the hairdresser's which was badly needed. Our attempts at cutting had been pretty bad and now she has a lovely stylish bob.

Of course a cool chick with a stylish bob needs cool Dora the Explorer sunglasses for those sunny days...

We have already enjoyed the company of a number of visitors in the new house. It's a great house for entertaining and we have been making the most of the entertaining area by hosting quite a few BBQ's.

We regularly enjoy the company of Zoe and James and are excited that they have announced a wedding date for January 2010. Exciting times.

Hope everyone is well and those of you in Canada, US and UK are dealing with the cold ok. Anyone wanting to escape is welcome to visit!

Lots of love to you all
Caroline, Iain and Amelia xxxx